A great many deacons in New England died drunkards. I have a list of one hundred and twenty-three intemperate deacons in Massachusetts, forty-three of whom became sots.

In the spring of 1810 Rev. Lyman Beecher settled in Litchfield, Conn., where in his intercourse with his brethren in the ministry, at ordinations and other gatherings, his mind was powerfully stirred upon this subject. But the account shall be given in his own plain and forcible words:

Soon after my arrival at Litchfield, I was called to attend the ordination at Plymouth of Mr. Hart, ever after that my very especial friend. . . . At this ordination the preparation for our creature comforts in the sitting-room of Mr. Hart's house, besides food, was a broad sideboard covered with decanters and bottles and sugar and pitchers of water. There we found all the various kinds of liquors then in vogue. The drinking was apparently universal. This preparation was made by the society, as a matter of course. When the Consociation arrived, they always took something to drink round, also before public services, and always on their return. As they could not all drink at once, they were obliged to stand and wait as people do when they go to mill.

There was a decanter of spirits also on the dinner table to help digestion, and gentlemen partook of it through afternoon and evening as they felt the need, some more and some less; and the sideboard, with its spillings of water and sugar and liquor, looked and smelled like the bar of a very active grog-shop. None of the Consociation were drunk; but that there was not at times a considerable amount of exhilaration, I cannot affirm.

When they had all done drinking and taken pipes and tobacco, in less than fifteen minutes there was such a smoke you couldn't see. And the noise I cannot describe; it was the maximum of hilarity. They told their stories, and were at the height of jocose talk. They were not old-fashioned Puritans. They had been run down. Great deal of spirituality on the Sabbath, and not much when they got where there was something good to drink. I think I recollect some animadversions were made at that time by the people on the amount of liquor drank, for the tide was swelling in the drinking habits of society.

The next ordination was that of Mr. Harvey, in Goshen, and there was the same preparation, and the same scenes acted over, and still louder murmurs from the society at the quantity and expense of liquor consumed. These two meetings were near together, and in both my alarm and shame and indignation were intense. 'Twas that that woke me up for the

tar. And, silently, I took an oath before God that I would never attend another ordination of that kind. I was full. My heart kindles up at the thought of it now.

Such were the convicting processes through which this great and energetic mind passed, in its preparation for the bold and resolute part which it was about to take in one of the most difficult and important departments of Christian philanthropy in modern times.

QUAINT NAMES FOR THE FIRST STAGES OF DRUNKENNESS were in common use about the commencement of this century. Men who were under the first effects of liquor were called, “Boozy," "Groggy," " Blue," "Damp," "Tipsy," "Fuddled," "Haily gayly," "How came you so?" "Half shaved," "Swipsy," "Has got a drop in his eye," "Cut," "Has got his wet sheet aboard," "Cut in the craw," "High up to picking cotton," (Georgia,) etc., etc.

A TAVERN CHARGE IN 1812.

The following item is taken from "The Drunkard's Looking-Glass," a curious old pamphlet, published in 1812:

A gentleman in one of the interior towns of Massachusetts, in the year 1802, prepared the following statement. It was republished in the "Panoplist" in 1814:

In this town we are annually paying taxes for the following sums, viz.:

It is found, by exact inquiry, that within one year the following quantities of ardent spirits have been retailed in this town:

80 casks of N. E. Rum, at 61 cts. per gallon....

W. I. Rum, at $1

$6,240

Population, 3,000; being an average of 6 1-7 gallons to every man, woman, and child. Average cost to each, $5 25. The cost for education, religion, and taxes was about half as much as for alcoholic drinks.

SPIRITUAL EDUCATION IN 1810.

An old account book, kept in a store in Thompson, in Windham County, Conn., in the year 1810, contained the following charge, which came under my personal notice:

It was then considered to be necessary to take a little rum in order to prepare the mind to appreciate such studies as the following: "Question-What is the chief end of man? AnswerTo glorify God and enjoy his presence forever.”

The following bill of refreshments for the singers at a funeral in Londonderry, N. H., is a curious item:

We can understand how the above singers might be lively and spiritual, but we fear they were not very solemn.

An old bill of stores to be obtained, in Boston, for an ordination service in the town of C-, "to be paid out of the town treasury," embraced, among many other articles, the following: Five gallons of West India rum; three gallons of brandy; five gallons of wine, and one barrel of cider. But this is only one, out of many similar cases.

Whisky was almost the sole production of extensive new regions, and it was a common remark that " a horse could carry only four bushels of rye, but he could carry the whisky made from twenty-four bushels." A prominent French official said, "Whisky is the best part of the American government."

In 1866, Prof. Calvin E. Stowe, in a temperance address, in Hartford, said:

My recollections cover a period of sixty years, the first twenty-five including the time when drinking habits were at their worst in this country. I was born and brought up in Middlesex County, Mass., one of the best counties of one of the best States. Its moral condition would compare favorably with the best portions of the country, and yet before I was four years old I was drunk. My father was not a drinker, but he considered it a duty of hospitality to furnish to guests. Among other liquors, he had a lot of cherry rum. One day he poured the cherries on the ground out back of the house. I got hold of them, thought them pretty good, ate a large quantity, and was made ingloriously drunk. It is about the first sensation I recollect, and a most painful one it was. Soon after this I

found the men

went out to a part of the farm away from the house, and at their lunch. I stole a drink, and again got drunk. And so frequent were the temptations that it is astonishing that any one grew up sober. At the age of six my father died, and I went to live with my grandfather.

He was a good man, and a deacon in the church; but both he and his wife took their daily drams, at eleven in the morning and at four in the afternoon, and always gave to me at the same time; and that was the custom of the country. Mr. O-- B-, a resident in that section, said that

in his father's day-that is, in 1760-they laid in a pint of rum for haying on his father's farm ; but his son, in 1810, was obliged to lay in half a barrel of rum for haying on the same farm. So much had the drinking custom grown in fifty years. I recollect only two protests against rum that existed at that time. One of these was in Noah Webster's spelling and reading book, and favored total abstinence ; the other was a tract, written by Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, on "The Nature and Effects of Ar

dent Spirits." There was a grocery store in the town, kept by Deacon Eb, as he was always called, where an enormous amount of rum was sold. He failed, and in some way his account books were scattered about the streets. We boys called them Deacon Eb's psalm books. The charges in them ran somewhat thus: "To rum, to tod, to rum, to tod, to rum, to rum, to rum." Nine out of ten of the charges were either for rum or toddy. I recollect being in a store one day, when an old man came in, who was once the owner of a fine farm. He was squalid and trembling, but called for toddy. With his trembling hands he just managed to raise a first and second glass to his lips. He called for a third, and instead of taking it in his hand, he was obliged to place it on the counter, lean over, and suck it up with his lips. I look back upon this period with perfect

terror.

At this time the great monster of intemperance had become completely domesticated. Like the viper in the fable, it had been taken into the warm bosom of society. On all social and festive occasions, at funerals, amid the toils of every-day labor, at the mid-day meal in most families, in the entertainment of the clergy, and in the payment of the most trival forfeits, ardent spirits were freely used. Its use was almost as common as